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Saturday, December 21, 2013

With right wing Damien Brunner sidelined with a right knee injury and center Andrei Loktionov also out because he’s ill, Devils coach Pete DeBoer said he’s “going to move some guys around” in his line combinations.

DeBoer wouldn’t get specific on his lines, but confirmed that Mattias Tedenby will be in the lineup for the first time since Nov. 29 in Carolina (He played two AHL games on a conditioning loan to Albany last weekend.

“Then, we’re going to make some decisions in warm-up here on the rest of the group,” DeBoer said.

Those decisions would appeared to involve Jacob Josefson, Cam Janssen and Tim Sestito.

Adam Henrique confirmed he will shift from left wing back to center tonight with Loktionov out, so if Josefson plays, it would likely be as a wing.

DeBoer said it was a bad break for Brunner, who had scored four goals in his last four games before he was injured in the first period of Friday’s 3-2 overtime loss to Anaheim.

“It looks like probably a four-week type timeline, so unfortunate for him,” DeBoer said. “He was playing great and was just starting to consistently find his game, so it will be someone else’s opportunity.”

Martin Brodeur will start in net for the Devils. There is no word yet on who will start in net for the Capitals.

The Devils shift their focus tonight from trying to stop Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry to trying to contain Alex Ovechkin, who leads the NHL with 29 goals in 33 games and has seven goals in his last five games, including his 400th career goal Friday night in Carolina.

“We played Perry and Getzlaf last night and we did a good job eliminating them from being a major factor in the game,” DeBoer said. “They found another way to get two or three goals and that’s what deep teams do. That’s the challenge tonight. Obviously, we have to pay attention to Ovechkin. He’s been hot lately. He’s scoring every night.

“That’s one challenge and the second challenge is to make sure the other guys on the ice don’t beat us.”

Although the Devils have been good on the penalty kill this season (ranked sixth in the NHL with an 86.1 percent success rate), limiting the number of penalties they take against the Capitals’ lethal power play will be essential. The Capitals rank second in the league with a 26.3 percent success rate and Ovechkin leads the league with 12 power-play goals.

With former Devils assistant Adam Oates as their head coach, the Capitals utilize a similar power play set-up to the one the Devils used two seasons ago with Ilya Kovalchuk. What separates the Capitals’ power play is the talent they have around Ovechkin.

“I think the uniqueness of their power play is the skill set and how complementary their five guys are to each other,” DeBoer said. “You’ve got a great half wall guy in (Nicklas) Backstrom, who controls the play. You’ve got a great shooter in the slot in (Troy) Brouwer. You’ve got Ovechkin with the one-timer back door and you’ve got a bomb at the top with (Mike) Green.

“So, you’ve got personnel there that perfectly fit what Adam’s trying to do and they execute.”

***DeBoer said Loktionov is "dealing with a little bit of something, but nothing major."

***Rookie wing Reid Boucher said this morning he “didn’t play very well” in Friday’s game and was looking to bounce back tonight. Although he played Boucher only 9:30 (the lowest total in his eight NHL games so far) DeBoer didn’t necessarily agree with Boucher’s assessment.

“I think as a group sometimes guys are a little hard on themselves,” DeBoer said. “That Anaheim team can make you look bad. They’re a big, heavy, physical team. There’s a reason they have the record they have and I thought our guys hung in there pretty well for the most part against them. So, I’m not as hard on his game as his game as he is.”

***Henrique played a strong game Friday, picking up his second assist in as many games and hitting the post in a shorthanded rush in the first period.

“I thought he had good jump,” DeBoer said. “I thought hit was his best game in a while.”***DeBoer on the play of Michael Ryder, who scored his 10th goal of the season Friday:

“He’s hot. A lot like Brunner, he’s found his touch. They’re going in for him. I think even prior to him starting to score I liked how he was playing. He was creating two or three chances a night. They just weren’t going. They are now, so we want to ride that as long as we can.”

***There's no word yet on the Caps' full lineup tonight, but former Devils defenseman Alex Urbom -- claimed off waivers on Oct. 3 -- will be a healthy scratch for the 10th consecutive game. Urbom, 23, has not dressed since Nov. 29.

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.